While the early evening sun weighed heavy in the sky, the Water Nokk galloped majestically over the crashing waves as it carried Elsa from Arendelle to Ahtohallan. Elsa knew that Freya was way ahead of her, and that time was running out. Elsa thought about how dangerous Freya could become, and the kind of danger Freya could be in. She was fraught with worry.
As she held onto the Water Nokk's ice bridle, Elsa tried to work out how Freya could have discovered Ahtohallan. Then it hit her. Her parent's ship! She knew that the map to Ahtohallan was on board. And if Freya had found the ship, there was only one thing she would have done afterwards. Elsa closed her eyes tightly, put her hand to her head, and gritted her teeth in anguish. Concentrating on the task in hand, Elsa cleared her mind, threw her arm back down by her side, and opened her eyes. She looked forward, determined to cross the Dark Sea as quickly as she could.
Meanwhile, as Freya glided through the icy caverns of Ahtohallan, she thought about the challenges she might face. Would spikes of ice drop from the ceiling? Maybe she would encounter a sudden blizzard? What about a giant snow beast for her to battle? She pondered these ideas as she skipped through tunnel after tunnel.
Freya came to a wide chasm. She could see the entrance to another tunnel on the other side. Without hesitating, she ran, jumped up and turned herself into a fireball, effortlessly flying across. Is that all you've got? she thought.
Once she was in the next chamber, she found her path blocked by huge pillars of ice. She shot jets of flame out of her hands to melt them, and she continued gleefully through Ahtohallan, determined to find the source of Elsa's power.
Just think what I'll be able to do if my powers are as strong as Elsa's! she thought.
Freya soon arrived at Ahtohallan's huge central chamber. It was a deep blue, which gave the atmosphere an ethereal quality, an uneasy calmness. This is too easy! Now Elsa, where is the source of your power? It must be here somewhere! Freya walked around the enormous dome-like structure, taken aback by how gigantic it was. As she looked up to try and take everything in, she thought she could hear voices echoing through the chamber, even the occasional scream. She looked in their direction, and could see figures made out of ice and snow moving in the distance.
These must be the memories Yelena was talking about! Freya thought as she ran towards them. She stopped and put her hand to her mouth in shock. She could see visions of herself, her mother and father. Freya slowly moved her hands to her heart as she heard the vision of her twelve-year-old self talk.
"When can I go outside, father?" the younger Freya snarled while she clenched her fists.
"We've told you," her father replied. "You must stay in the castle for your own protection!"
"But I'm sick of this castle!" the young Freya screamed. "All I've ever known is these walls! I know there's a whole world outside! Let me out!"
"No!" the vision of the king replied, standing up straight and towering over the young Freya.
"That's it," the young Freya said under her breath. "No more."
The vision of Freya gently shook her head, then looked at the ground and closed her eyes. She started fires in her hands, then looked up and glared at her father. She slowly raised her hand and pointed at him, the fire burning on her fingertip.
"You are letting me out," the young Freya instructed as she took a step towards her father. "Right now," she whispered as she pointed her finger up at her father's face. Her father looked down and gulped, then looked behind Freya and gave a knowing nod.
A vision of Freya's mother crept up behind her, carrying a bucket of water. As she threw the water over the vision of the twelve-year-old Freya, the fires were extinguished and she screamed in pain. Freya herself flinched as she kept her eyes on her younger self. The vision of her father then picked up the vision of Freya and carried her over his shoulder.
"No!" the vision of Freya yelled with her eyes scrunched shut. "Let me out! Let me out!" she howled while she beat her father's back with her fists and kicked him in the stomach.
A vision of a door appeared. With a despondent frown on her face, the vision of Freya's mother opened it. Her father dumped Freya inside before her mother shut the door tightly. Freya's mother and father looked at the floor while they heard the shouts of Freya as she beat the door. Her father placed his hand on her mother's shoulder.
The hands of the vision of Freya scraped down the door before she curled up into a ball, her face on the floor. Bawling her eyes out, the vision of Freya clutched her hands against the side of her head.
"D...don't worry," Freya stuttered through her tears as she reached out to her younger self. "I know it hurts now but...we showed them!" she said as her eyes darted from side to side. She let out a snarling sigh. "We showed all of them," she growled. After closing her eyes and huffing, she once again reached out. "You see these walls? The tower, the castle, even the town? It's ours now. It's our kingdom of ashes."
For a few seconds, Freya stayed on the floor and contemplated the image of her younger self. Then, she once again heard a deep voice. With a scowl on her face, Freya snapped her attention back to the visions of her parents.
"I know it's cruel," the image of her father sighed, "but what else can we do?"
"We can't just lock her up in the tower!" the vision of her mother cried out. "There must be some other way!"
Freya got up off the floor and moved to the visions of her parents as her father shook his head. "I remember that day so well," Freya said to the vision of her father. "That was when I vowed to take my revenge," she snarled as she raised her finger to her father's face. "And I did!" she said as she began to slowly nod. "Didn't I father?" she asked as she began to laugh. She stepped forward and moved her finger closer to the vision, and they disintegrated around her.
Freya put her arms out to steady herself. Next, she saw a vision of herself when she was around eight years old. Her mother sat with her.
"Look, you'll like this book!" her mother tried to enthuse. "It's all about Norse mythology. There's the god of thunder, the goddess of fire, and this handsome chap is the god of the underworld! Isn't that exciting!" she said while pointing at the pages.
Freya watched the image of herself as a child try to take an interest in the book. She let out a sigh, feeling a little sorry for her mother. Maybe she wasn't completely to blame? At least she had tried to give her some sort of education.
Freya moved on to a similar scene, but this time she was about three.
"Okay, I'm going to teach you how to read," her mother said, tentatively opening a child's book. "You see this letter here? This is an 'a'," she said while pointing at it.
"No book!" the young Freya shouted.
Freya raised her fingers to her mouth and giggled as she saw her younger self touch the book and set it on fire. Her mother quickly snuffed the fire out with her hands.
"Don't do that!" the vision of her mother said sternly. "Do I have to get the water again?"
Freya thought about how she'd always been too much to handle, but her train of thought was interrupted by the sound of a baby crying.
"Come on you, time to get clean," a vision of her father said. Freya saw herself as an infant, and her father was trying to give her a bath. She was crying her eyes out, and screamed when her father poured water over her head. "Oh come now, it can't be that bad!" her father insisted.
Freya lunged forward, trying to touch the vision and rescue her infant self, but all she could do was stare in horror. She knew she would have been in pain, but she was powerless to do anything about it. Running up to the vision of her father, she mouthed "Take her out! Take her out!" at him.
Just then, her mother raced into the vision. "What are you doing?" she scowled at her father.
"I'm getting her clean! And look, no fire!" he said while holding the infant Freya's hand.
"She doesn't like it!" her mother told him sternly. "Come here sweetheart," she said as she whisked her daughter out of the bath. The vision of the infant Freya was wrapped in a towel, and she started to giggle as her mother dried her. Freya herself sighed in relief and whispered "Thank you" at her mother.
"There, that's better!" her mother declared as she tickled her daughter on the tummy. The infant Freya giggled, burbled, and threw her arms out in happiness. A tiny fireball shot from her finger. "Oh, careful!" her mother said while laughing a little.
Freya watched intently while keeping a slight smile and resting her chin on her hand. She'd never seen her mother display so much affection for her before.
Freya sighed and moved on. She saw herself as a baby. She was giggling happily, but small flames were shooting out of her fingers as she moved her arms around.
"What do we do?" a worry-stricken younger vision of her mother said.
"The only thing we can do," her father said solemnly. "We can't let anyone know about her powers. I'll order the guards to shut the castle gates. We'll close off the kingdom. Permanently."
Freya felt more tears well up in her eyes. She had just seen the moment where she was condemned to a life alone. She turned away, closed her eyes and bowed her head. She looked up to see the entrance to the chamber, and she began to walk towards it. Then, she heard an unfamiliar voice. Morbidly intrigued, she turned back towards the visions. She saw one more. It was of her mother and father, much younger looking than before, and sitting at a table. On the other side there was an old man sat bent over, wearing a tattered robe. Freya assumed he was a wizard of some kind.
"Look, we wouldn't usually get involved in this sort of thing, but we're desperate," the image of her father said.
"Yes, we've been trying to have a child for so long now, we'll do anything," the vision of her mother added.
"Can you help us?" her father asked.
The old man sat back in his chair and placed his fingertips together. "Hmmm, perhaps," he said in a small, croaky voice. "I do have one potion in my collection that may suit your needs. If you take it, you will have a child. But beware, taking this potion has...unforeseen consequences!" he said as he chuckled to himself.
"What sort of consequences?" Freya's mother asked nervously.
"Well," the old man replied, "one or both of you could become gravely ill. You may become cursed in some way. The child may have, shall we say, certain special qualities. Who knows? The effects of this magic are very, very difficult to predict!"
"But will the child be healthy?" Freya's mother asked.
"Oh yes!" the old man enthused as he passed a vial of the potion to Freya's mother. "The child will be very, very healthy! Positively glowing, in fact!" he said with a grin.
The visions of Freya's parents looked at each other and nodded. "We did say we'd do anything…" her father said.
Freya stared at the vision of her mother, totally aghast. "No…don't…" she whispered as she leaned forwards and clutched her hands to her chest.
Freya's mother contemplated the potion for a few seconds, then tilted her head back and drank it all down.
"Congratulations," the old man said quietly before coughing into his hand. "I eagerly await the news of the first royal baby!"
Freya turned away, then sank to her knees and wept.
"Mother. Father. How could you?" she whispered to herself through her tears. She looked down at her hands. "How could you make me into the monster that I am?"
Her weeping softly resonated through the chamber.
"No friends. No birthday parties. No life," Freya said to herself, shaking her head. She closed her eyes and held her head in her hands. Then, she fell forwards, resting her forehead on the icy floor. She made fists, and hit the floor a few times while keeping her eyes tightly shut. For a few minutes, Freya stayed on the floor and sobbed. The quiet murmuring of the voices of the visions that surrounded her were the only other sounds in the chamber.
Freya's fists became tighter, and they began to shake. They started to glow, and the ice around them hissed as it melted, then evaporated. Freya sat up, put her hands on her knees and fell silent. When she opened her eyes they were blazing with fire, burning brighter than they had ever done before. The light was so intense that her irises and pupils were barely visible.
"All this time it was them!" Freya boomed, her shouting shattering the eerie serenity of the chamber. "It was always them! It's all their fault!" she bellowed as her voice shook with anger. Freya looked down at her hands. She had opened her palms and started fires in both of them. "They made me like this!" she shouted.
Freya rose to her feet. The flames in her palms were growing taller. She began to gnash her teeth. "They closed the castle gates! They locked me in the tower! Because of them I grew up alone! I never stood a chance! They cursed me before I was even born! Ah!"
Freya arched her back and screamed. As she did so, a huge jet of flame shot from her mouth, and the flames in her hands reached the ceiling. Soon, her whole body was glowing. Flames engulfed her head, as if her hair was entirely composed of fire.
Freya turned to look at the icy visions. "Traitors!" she screamed as she obliterated the visions of her parents with the wizard using a powerful beam of fire. She walked to the vision of herself as a newborn. "Liars!" she bellowed as the ice and snow of the apparition was vaporized by the inferno of her magic.
Freya stomped over to the next vision. "Thieves!" she screamed out as the figures of her mother and father succumbed to an even more powerful blast of her fire. Unable to contain her anguish, she began to form a fireball between her taught fingers. As she took a stride forwards onto one knee, she threw her arms out and screamed "You stole my life!" The entire chamber was instantly filled with her terrible fire, and the remaining visions disintegrated around her. As the fire swirled around the chamber, it created a heat haze. Freya's pleated hair blew across her tormented face. Breathing heavily, Freya gritted her teeth and started to form another fireball between her hands. She stood up, screamed, raised both of her hands, and shot an enormous beam of fire straight up at the domed ceiling. Huge chunks of it came crashing down as her irresistible torrent of flame burned upwards. Soon, the once serene chamber was a wreck, strewn with shattered chunks of icy debris.
Freya looked up. She could see daylight at the end of the hole she had blasted right through the glacier. Turning herself into a fireball, she launched herself through the gap then stood with triumph on top of the ice. The glacial valley of Ahtohallan laid before her.
Using her powers, Freya created a round collar for herself out of flames. From it came a sheet of fire that ran all the way down her back, before it trailed behind her like a grand cloak. Before long, she was adorned in a regal fire costume that was truly fitting of the Fire Queen.
Freya tilted her head and saw that the greatest fireball of all, the sun, was setting in the west. She watched as it slowly made its way over the horizon. When the sun had finally set, Freya looked down at her hands, and again thought of her parent's betrayal. Fires built up in her palms as she stared at them through gritted teeth. She then yelled and launched an incredible blast of fire upwards that lit up the sky for miles around.
Meanwhile, Elsa was crossing the Dark Sea on the Water Nokk. She narrowed her eyes and stared intently as the rocky shores of Ahtohallan entered her sights. Then, the entire sea was lit up by Freya's fire. Elsa gasped and shielded her eyes. The Nokk reared up onto its hind legs and neighed as it too was bathed in the intense light. Elsa held on to the ice bridle and stopped herself from falling off. She gave the Nokk a firm pat with the palm of her hand, and it settled back down. After her eyes adjusted, Elsa took a few seconds to look at the fire with an open mouth. She then took hold of the bridle, stared forwards, and pressed the Nokk onto Ahtohallan.
Freya's fire was even visible in the Northuldra camp. The Northuldra stared at it intently. Partners held each other, and families huddled together. Even the reindeer formed a large group, the babies cowering underneath the adults. With her staff in hand and her eyes wide with fear, Honeymaren walked up to Yelena.
"What do we do now?" Honeymaren asked as she gazed at the fire.
Yelena also stared at the fire as it was reflected off her pupils. She gulped. "We pray that Elsa can stop her."